


The Stranger

by RedNightmare14



Series: A Linked Perspective [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22172737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedNightmare14/pseuds/RedNightmare14
Summary: A stranger saved him. A stranger saved her son, but not her…
Series: A Linked Perspective [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590142
Comments: 2
Kudos: 106





	The Stranger

Dawn is breaking and I’m tired. I’ve been awake all night watching for monsters and protecting my son. We need shelter and warmth and safety and food and…so many things. It’s difficult to be safe when you’re alone like I am. Nobody can or will help me. The war is still going on so the royal family can’t help me, my friends and family are all either dead or scattered for their own safety, and Akita, my dear Hylian Dragon, dead on the battlefield.

What are we fighting for, again? I can’t remember, it’s been going on so long. Was there a succession crisis? An invasion? It began before I was born and nobody told me. I don’t think it matters. We’re fighting in it now and it’s destroying towns like mine.

When my town was sacked, its people fled to their family in other settlements for protection. I had no family and no one would take me. They could provide for me, they said, but not for my son. A baby needs so many more things than an adult does and won’t become useful until they’re older. They need able bodies now. Everyone does. Nobody needs another dependant.

Walking hurts. I haven’t eaten in days, maybe weeks, and my milk has ran dry. The baby is hungry but I can’t feed him. The land has been scorched by an army so there’s no food for me to eat. Whose army I don’t know, maybe it’s ours or maybe the enemy’s. It hurts us more than them. They’re probably not starving. In times of famine, the army remains strong. It’s our protection, but it isn’t protecting us much right now.

He still doesn’t have a name. Akita said that he’d had a name for him, but my love is dead and never told me. He said it was a great name, a strong name… But I don’t know what it is. Should I name the son after the father, then? Honour him? Would Akita want that? 

I walk down the path. I probably shouldn’t since this is where the armies will be marching, but I can’t bring myself to care. The path is easier to walk down than the forest or the riverside. 

A white-haired man is playing an instrument at the side of the road. A Sheikah, probably, he looks young and Hylians only get white hair when they grow old. Sheikah have the mark of death from birth, a sign of Hylia’s anger from millennia ago. Or at least, that’s what the legends say, it could be just fairy tales.

He’s wearing a cloak, trying to be mysterious? But his hair is peaking through the bottom. If he’s playing for money then I don’t have any. I try to walk past him.

“You know, when someone plays beautiful music, people usually stop to listen,” the stranger says. He’s one of those people then. The people who try to start conversation when it’s not wanted.

“Not if they are busy,” I respond, trying to walk faster, but I can’t bring my legs to move. It’s as if I’m frozen to the spot.

The stranger stands and walks to stand in front of me, resting his hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me? “Where are you going?” That is the question, isn’t it? There’s nowhere I can go.

“I don’t know.” Short and quick. Get this conversation over with. My legs won’t stay upright for much longer.

“Then you can stay and listen to my ocarina for a while.”

I don’t respond. I can’t. The world goes black and my baby disappears from my arms.

-

When I awaken, I’m by the side of the road and the stranger is holding my baby. Give him back, I will myself to speak, but I can’t. I’m too weak.

A liquid floods my mouth. The stranger is feeding me soup, but I cannot keep it down. I’m dying. It’s not pretty or honourable, it’s death. It came over me so quickly. I was sure I had a few weeks left before starvation or exhaustion overcame me.

“If you’re not going anywhere, then I can tell you where to go.”

Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t know who you are.

Suddenly, my mobility returns. The sleep must have revitalised me, there’s no other explanation. 

“What’s his name?” the stranger asks, looking down at my baby.

“He doesn’t have one,” I respond almost instinctively. Did this man give me a potion to make me speak? I have more energy now, but how? What was in that soup?

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“No.” He’s my baby. I’m naming him…once I figure out a name…

The stranger hums and a name appears in my mind about what to name him. I jump with the shock of it. I’ve never heard it before but it feels right…

“Link. His name is Link.”

“A strong name. A heroic name. It suits him for what he is to become.”

What?

The stranger rises and gives Link back to me. 

“Go to the forest. Someone there will help you. Just follow the mist.”

He leaves. Simply going behind a tree and disappearing when I check it. My energy is back, but my skin is still a sickly pale and my eyes sunken. I have energy, but I’m still dying. What is happening to me? What is going on here? Who was that man? 

My legs move without me wanting to. Going somewhere I don’t know. A spell must have been put on me, something slipped into the soup. There’s no other explanation, though I don’t know what spell could do that…

The mist is cold. When did I get here? The trees have faces on them. What is this place? Why am I here? There is laughter through the trees, children are laughing. Then, it stops. I feel as though eyes I can’t see are on me as I approach a clearing. 

It’s a giant tree with a face on it. Who could have taken the time to etch a…

“Is there a reason why you’re here?” the tree asks.

You know what. Forget it. I must still be asleep. I fell asleep and I’m dreaming, because trees don’t talk.

“I was told to come here.” Somehow I know what to say, like someone is speaking for me.

“Only children may come here and you know that.”

It doesn’t sound like he’s speaking to me, but who else could he be speaking to? There’s no one here. I must be dreaming.

I place Link gently under the tree. “Please take him. She’s dying and I cannot care for him any longer.”

I don’t get the tree’s answer. The world is going blurry. I’m outside the forest now and the stranger is there. His hood is down and his hair is free but unmoving. He’s wearing armour that I don’t recognise as being from any of the races. He turns and gently lowers me to the ground, under a tree without a face on the edge of the forest. I feel weak again. Is he going to give me more of that soup? Give me my energy back? His touch is cold and can feel my life drain from my body.

I look up onto his face. His eyes are pure white and soulless.

“You’ve done your duty. Now sleep.”

I sleep. And I dream of nothing…


End file.
